David Brin: Existence

But outside the village… beyond its forest of tame overlays… murmured a jungle that her natural eyes could never see.

Way back, about a century ago, physicist Enrico Fermi and his colleagues, taking a lunch break from the Manhattan Project, found themselves discussing life in the cosmos. Some younger scientists claimed that amid trillions of stars there should be countless living worlds inhabited by intelligent races, far older than ours. How interesting the future might be, with others to talk to!

Fermi listened patiently, then asked: “So? Shouldn’t we have heard their messages by now? Seen their great works? Or stumbled on residue of past visits? These wondrous others… where are they?”

His question has been called the Great Silence, the SETI Dilemma or Fermi Paradox. And as enthusiasts keep scanning the sky, the galaxy’s eerie hush grows more alarming.

Astronomers now use planet-hunting telescopes to estimate how many stars have companion worlds with molten water, and how often that leads to life. Others cogently guess what fraction of those Life Worldsdevelop technological beings. And what portion of those will either travel or transmit messages. Most conclude-we shouldn’t be alone. Yet, silence reigns.

Eventually it sank in-this wasn’t just theoretical. Something must be suppressing the outcome. Some “filter” may winnow the number of sapient races, low enough to explain our apparent isolation. Our loneliness.

Over ten dozen pat “explanations for the Great Silence” have been offered. Some claim that our lush planet is unique. (And, so far, nothing like Earth has been found, though life certainly exists out there.) Or that most eco-worlds suffer more lethal accidents-like the one that killed the dinosaurs-than Earth has.

Might human sapience be a fluke? Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr said-“Nothing demonstrates the improbability of high intelligence better than the fifty billion earthly species that failed to achieve it.” Or else, Earth may have some unique trait, rare elsewhere, that helped humans move from mere intelligence to brilliance at technology.

Sound gloomy? These are the optimistic explanations! They suggest the “great filter”-whatever’s kept the numbers down-lies behind us. Not ahead.

But what if life-bearing planets turn out to be common and intelligence arises frequently? Then the filter lies ahead. Perhaps some mistake that all sapient races make. Or several. A minefield of potential ways to fail. Each time we face some worrisome step along our road, from avoiding nuclear war to becoming skilled planetary managers, to genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and so on, we must ask: “Is this it? The Big Blunder? The trap underlying Fermi’s question?”

That’s the context of our story. The specter at our banquet, slinking between reflection and foresight, as we turn now to examine a long list of threats to our existence.

Those we can see.

– Pandora’s Cornucopia

Stepping off the monorail platform, Hamish realized-the U.S. Senate Franken Office Building was a behemoth. One of those gargantuan monuments built in patriotic frenzy by the Post-Awfulday Project, even before radiation counts fell to a safe level. Massive structures, expressing a national sense of utter (some might say maniacal) determination to reclaim the nation’s capital, with an architecture that seemed at once boldly resolute…

… yet at the same time hypercautious, to a degree Hamish found delightfully paranoid.

Naturally, Hamish compared the Franken to something out of his own novels and films-a self-contained city, perched above the still-slightly-glowing soil on fifty gigantic pillars. Each could drop two senators-plus visitors and staff-to underground shelter in less than a minute. (Twelve more senators, from junior states, had to settle for offices in the less lavish Fey-Beck Building, just outside the safe zone.) Suspended in space between each pair of mighty cylinders, office blocks could be hermetically isolated-symbolizing the way some of the “united” states had begun insulating from each other.

A tall, grassy berm surrounded the complex, within a gleaming moat (“reflecting pool”), in a palatial style copied by dozens of other PAP buildings, giving Washington a deceptively parklike ambience-pastoral, riparian, hilly-that invited the eye, though picnickers were rare. All of it watched by gleaming surveillance globes, atop discreet hatches that could disgorge men and deadly machines at a moment’s notice.

Hamish swept his gaze from the gleaming Capitol dome across other neomodern structures, each hunkering behind earth and jutting skyward at the same time, part bunker, part antiflood levee, and part spectacle-every castle complete with defiant, waving pennants. A blend of Disney andBlade Runner, Hamish decided. A uniquely American answer to the challenge of Awfulday.

Tourists, lobbyists, and staffers cruised among the Franken’s fifty broad pillars, arrayed like stars of the flag. Some used glide-shoes or skutrs to hasten about. Older folk, in need of something to hold on to, rode Sallies or Segways. A few preferred old-fashioned walking, despite daunting distances. Shimmering heat waves played optical tricks with the grid of sunlit pavement and shadows, making far seem near, and vice versa… till Hamish’s smart goggles compensated, restoring perspective.

Too bad-the effect had been kinda cool. Like in that movie they made of The Killer Memes… even if the pigheaded director got the plot all wrong.

For the most part, Hamish didn’t like to wear specs, except when he needed help getting from one place to another. Still, they offered enticing powers.

Wriggles spoke. From Hamish’s left earring.

“Senator Strong expects you in his office four minutes from now. We must pick up the pace, in order to be on time.”

Hamish nodded out of habit. His old aissistant used to require spoken commands or overt body cues. This new one sensed nerve signals and mutterings that he almost said aloud.

“Who cares?” he undermurmured. “Strong is as weak as a kitten, right now. Everyone’s snubbing him, after those loony rants two days ago. And on the record, no less.”

The aissistant wasn’t a full-fledged ai. Still, Wriggles acted a lot like one.

“That is no reason to mistreat a patron. I am overriding the skutr. Brace yourself.”

Hamish had only a moment to bend his knees and tense before the flat surface under his feet tilted slightly, accelerating on rapid-spinning wheels-all that a skutr had in common with the ancestral skateboard. Leaning forward, he soon found himself swooping past one of the fifty mammoth entry towers. COLORADO blazoned a banner carved out of native marble, above a frieze depicting the Second Capitol dome nestled amid lofty peaks, proclaiming the Rocky Mountain State to be America’s “backup headquarters.”

Another broad cylinder, fast approaching, heralded NORTH CAROLINA across a huge lintel, showing the Wright brothers flyer in etched relief. Hamish gave up trying to steer the skutr, since Wriggles seemed insistent on maintaining control at this speed. Probably a good thing. The little vehicle automatically evaded slower pedestrians by swinging onto one of the fast-transit arcs that normally were used by messengers and delivery boys, hurrying across the expanse of pavement. So much for dignity.

“Brace for stop.”

Hamish briefly wondered what might happen if he disobeyed. Would the aissistant sense he wasn’t ready and veer the skutr across the broad plaza, for a gentler deceleration? Or would Wriggles use the opportunity to teach its human a lesson?